


only yourself

by boyfriem



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Breakdown, Suicide Attempt, also if u ship guzma and nanu i will beat you up, i swear it ends happy theres just a LOT of pain beforehand, nanu hates himself. guzma also hates himself. gladion ALSO hates himself, rated for language, theyre a triple threat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-05-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 15:10:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18943489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfriem/pseuds/boyfriem
Summary: in which nanu tries to save three children with varying degrees of success, and maybe they also save him





	only yourself

**Author's Note:**

> *writes 9000 words of pokemon angst* this is fine and healthy and good. i am in peak mental condition
> 
>  
> 
> title is from only yourself by kevin divine. one day perhaps i will stop titling fics with song lyrics/titles that are barely relevant. but today is not that day.

Now maybe Nanu’s just crazy, but he was under the impression that gangs were supposed to be threatening. 

Maybe it’s the years of Interpol under his belt making him think this way, but after dealing with Team Rocket in Kanto, the words “pokemon gang” set off  _ serious  _ alarm bells. It seems that one surfaces in a different region every few years, but Alola has yet to get its share of organized crime. 

If Team Skull is an attempt at it, it’s a pretty lousy one. 

Nanu cracks his knuckles and yawns. He’s tired,  _ so  _ tired. He just wants to go home. Not that he has a home, exactly, but… 

“What do you want, old man?” the kid sitting on the couch —  _ his  _ couch — scowls at him.  _ I’m not old, am I?  _ He wonders. He’s only just turned 40! Old man, honestly… 

“This is my police station,” he sighs, “I’d like you to leave.” 

The kid jumps to his feet, pokeball in hand. Now, maybe things are about to get interesting. Maybe when the folks at the Aether House told him Team Skull had taken over the Route 17 police station they really  _ did  _ find the idea of the gang threatening. Maybe he’s underestimating this boy, maybe he’s gonna pull out a team so strong that Nanu will go running. 

But he seriously doubts it. 

“I’ve never seen you here before,” the kid says. 

“Yeah, well I’ve been busy,” he snaps (he doubts that was supposed to hit him like it did, but that doesn’t make the blow any lighter), “now get out.” 

The kid cracks a grin. Does he have  _ braces _ ? Honestly, who let this kid join a gang? “I don’t think you know who I am,” he says ( _ Of course I don’t _ , Nanu almost replies, but holds his tongue), “I’m the leader of Team Skull! Big, bad Guzma!” 

He puffs out his chest proudly, obviously waiting for some sort of reaction. Nanu is amused more than anything else. He isn’t big  _ or  _ bad. He’s their  _ leader _ ? 

“Get out of my police station,” Nanu repeats. 

“I- fine! Battle me!” Guzma yells. “I bet you’re not strong enough to get me out of here, old man!” 

 

Not only is Nanu strong enough to beat Guzma in a battle, but he’s strong enough to carry the kid out of the station after he loses and still refuses to leave. Nanu throws him on the doorstep and slams the door in his face, locking it behind himself. 

“Hey!” Guzma hollers, pounding on the door, “lemme in! My backpack is in there!” 

Nanu rolls his eyes up at the ceiling. Guzma’s made a mess of the place — the room is cluttered with clothes and food wrappers and miscellaneous medicines (all for pokemon, Nanu notices, though Guzma himself had looked like he could use a trip to a Pokemon Center himself). And the Meowths, good lord. Nanu was no stranger to them roaming about — he’d made a habit of leaving food out for them years ago — but this is nothing short of an infestation. He can see six of them lying about, and he’s sure there are more hiding somewhere. 

Well, he’s certainly got some cleaning up to do. 

 

Nanu’s been back in the police station for four days (and finally managed to clean it up into something more habitable) when he sees someone sleeping in the bushes. 

He’s on his way back from a midnight stroll with his Persian, having an unusually pleasant night when he sees the body. If he were in another region he might ignore it, but Alola isn’t really the sort of place where people pass out on the side of the road, so he puts Persian away and approaches slowly, kneeling down in front of the body and poking it hesitantly. 

His attempts to figure out whether he’s found a dead body or just a very tired trainer are met with an annoyed, “Oh my god, leave me  _ alone _ ,” followed by a bleary-eyed teen sitting up with his hair full of leaves and elaborating, “I’m fine, I’m not dead,  _ don’t  _ call my parents!” 

“Guzma?” Nanu asks. 

“Old man?” Guzma frowns in confusion. 

“My name’s Nanu,” Nanu sighs. “What are you doing out here?” 

“Well  _ someone  _ kicked me out of the police station,  _ so _ …” 

“Arceus, kid,” Nanu groans — it’s too late for this, “just come inside.” 

When Guzma doesn’t say anything, Nanu pats him on the arm (he recoils like he’s been punched, and something akin to anger builds in Nanu’s chest) and says, “Well, you can stay here if you want. But I’ll leave the door unlocked.”   
Hours later, when he’s struggling to fall asleep, he hears the door of the police station open. 

By the time he wakes up the next morning, Guzma is gone. 

 

This continues for a few days. Guzma only comes to the station once all the lights are off and Nanu is asleep (or pretending to be, more often, because sleep doesn’t come easy but he’s worried that if Guzma knows he’s awake, he’ll be scared off), and he leaves as soon as the sun rises. 

One night when Guzma comes in, Nanu says, tiredly, “You don’t have to hide from me, y’know.” 

Guzma jumps nearly a foot into the air and shouts, “What the hell? Don’t scare me like that!” 

Nanu rolls his eyes and flicks on the lights. “It’s way more of an inconvenience to have you sneaking around at all hours of the night than for you to just stay here like a normal person, so…” he trails off as he gets a good look at Guzma’s face. His eyes are red, tears trailing down his cheeks, and when he notices Nanu looking at him he quickly turns away. 

“Are you okay?” Nanu asks. Stupid question, obviously, but he’s not sure what else to say. 

“Yeah,” Guzma snaps at him, “I’m doing great.” 

“Okay, um, I’ll make some tea.” 

They drink their tea in silence. Nanu doesn’t ask — it’s not his business to. 

When he wakes up the next morning, Guzma is still snoring on the other couch. 

“Um, I might be gone for a couple of days,” Guzma says. “Not that it matters or anything, but I just thought I should let you know, um, in case you got worried or something.” 

The tips of his ears are burning red as he mumbles something unintelligible down at the floor, fidgeting with his sleeve uncomfortably. 

“Thanks for telling me,” Nanu says because he’s not sure what else to say. He  _ would  _ worry if Guzma disappeared all of a sudden, truthfully, but he’s sure that if he says that Guzma will think he’s lying. Not that he can blame him, he’s not very… parental. “Where are you going?” 

“Visiting my parents. My dad said he’d come to Ula’ula to get me if I didn’t go back home soon, so…” 

So he has parents. Obviously, he has parents. 

Nanu doesn’t know his parents, but he doesn’t think he likes them very much. 

“So, what, is this a permanent thing?” Nanu asks. 

“Don’t get excited, I’m coming back.” 

“You better. I’ll get lonely without you.” 

“Don’t lie,” Guzma says, scratching at the back of his neck. 

“I’m not-” Nanu starts, but it’s futile. He sees too much of himself in Guzma, and he knows that no amount of convincing him that people do, in fact, care about him will make him believe it. “Have fun,” he says, though it sounds far too inadequate. “I’ll leave the door unlocked.” 

 

The next afternoon, Guzma storms into the station with a black eye and what looks like a broken nose, and Nanu’s blood boils. 

“Well, you’re home… early…” Nanu trails off, throwing down his book the second he sees Guzma’s face. “Holy shit.” 

Guzma flings himself onto the couch and grumbles, “I hate my dad.” 

Nanu doesn’t think a kahuna has ever been convicted of murder before. Well, he’s gonna be the first. 

Nanu frowns as he tries to think of something to say. “You should go to a pokemon center,” he settles on. 

“Hell no,” Guzma says bitterly. “They’ll ask too many questions.”

“Okay, well… y’know what, I think I’ve got some medicine in the back somewhere, why don’t I try and fix you up?”

Guzma looks over at him suspiciously. “I’m fine,” he scowls, “I don’t need your charity.”

Nanu resists the urge to roll his eyes. “No offense, but you look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

Nanu sighs heavily. He’s not a particularly affectionate person, but he has the fierce and nearly unstoppable urge to hug Guzma and tell him everything’s gonna be okay. 

But it’s probably not, and he’s never been a liar. 

So the best he can do is promise, “I won’t ask any questions.”

Guzma won’t meet his eyes, but he grumbles, “Fine.” 

So he patches up Guzma’s face wordlessly. And then he patches up the rest of his body, because the injuries extend beyond what Nanu saw at first. He tries not to talk, really does, but when Guzma pulls off his hoodie to show Nanu his arms and back, a gruesome mess of scabs and bruises, Nanu can’t help but gasp. 

“What happened to you?” he asks before he can remember to keep his mouth shut. He’s seen his fair share of violence, but this is just... too much. 

“No questions, remember?” Guzma answers sharply. 

Nanu sighs grimly and goes to fetch another roll of bandages. 

 

For the next few days, he doesn’t let Guzma out of his sight. 

He sees himself in the kid, after all, enough of himself that he knows better than to leave him unsupervised when he’s obviously vulnerable enough to do something stupid. Still, he can’t watch Guzma forever, and so nearly a week later, when his face looks almost normal and he’s starting to laugh at Nanu’s stupid jokes again, Nanu decides that it’s probably safe to go into Malie to get groceries. What’s the worst that could happen?

Although, he considers as he browses the aisles of the supermarket, “what’s the worst that could happen” is the sort of mentality that has nearly killed him more than once. 

He buys his groceries as fast as possible. 

 

When he returns to the police station, his first thought is that at least he knows Guzma is alive, thank god. 

His second thought is,  _ Why in Arceus’ name is he being so loud?  _

He lingers outside the door for a few seconds listening to Guzma yell, catching one side of a furious conversation. 

“YOU CAN’T MAKE ME...OH, STOP ACTING LIKE YOU CARE...SHUT UP!  _ SHUT UP _ !...WELL IF I’M SUCH A FUCKING DISAPPOINTMENT THEN IT SHOULDN’T EVEN MATTER IF I’M GONE, SHOULD IT?” During this last bit, his voice breaks, words punctuated by ragged breaths and bitter sobs that make Nanu’s blood boil. 

Fueled by anger and a parental instinct normally reserved for Acerola, he bursts into the station. Guzma, standing in the middle of the room with tears streaming down his cheeks and a phone to his ear, freezes in his tracks, staring at Nanu like a deerling trapped in headlights. He opens and closes his mouth like he’s trying to speak, but no sound comes out. 

On the other end of the phone, a gruff voice barks, “Guzma! Ignoring me again, are you? Oh, that’s very mature.”

Without thinking, Nanu storms over and grabs the phone out of Guzma’s hand. 

“Nanu,” he protests, “please-” 

“Hey,” he growls into the phone, much to Guzma’s horror, “what the fuck do you think you’re doing, talking to him like that?” 

There’s no answer for a second, and then the guy says, “Who’re you?” 

“I’m the kahuna of Ula’ula island,” he snaps. Hey, if there’s any time to abuse his power as Kahuna, it’s now.

“The crazy cop?” That’s really the nicest reaction Nanu could get, all things considered. If he’d been talking to someone from Ula’Ula or Poni, the response would surely be meaner. 

The people of Alola aren’t exactly the biggest fans of Kahuna Nanu. 

“Yeah,” he sighs — he’s not gonna pick this fight right now, “that’s me.” 

Immediately, the man’s voice gets quieter, softer. Still ready to fight, but less transparent about it. “Kahuna, I don’t know what my son has told you, but what’s happening between us is family business. It doesn’t concern you.”   
“Bullshit. He’s all beat up and shit, crying right in front of me because of you!”

At this, Guzma stiffens and shrinks further into his hoodie. 

Guzma’s dad sighs apologetically, a simple action that makes Nanu want to hit something. “He’s got a flair for the dramatic.”

Only the knowledge that Guzma will probably fall to pieces right in front of him if he gets much louder keeps Nanu from screaming at his dad until he loses his voice. “A  _ flare for the dramatic _ ?”

“I promise you, kahuna, he’s exaggerating things. Let me talk to him, please.” 

Nanu nearly snaps the phone in half. “I’ve had enough of your shit. If you call Guzma again I’ll come to Melemele and beat you up worse than you beat him, understand?”

He jabs at the button to hang the phone up and hands it back to Guzma. “If he gives you any more shit I’ll punch him. I mean it.”

Guzma stares at him, wide-eyed, and says, “That was awesome.”

Was it? It was sort of just something he had to do. He’s the kahuna, after all, and it’s a kahuna’s job to protect the people of his island. He might as well step up and protect someone every once in a while. 

 

“I have to go,” Nanu says (yells, really, volume control under panic has never been his strong suit), “take care of the station for me.” 

“You okay, old man?” Guzma asks. “You look stressed.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Nanu nods, a bald-faced lie if he’s ever heard one. “I just… my friend was in an accident, and-” 

Guzma’s face pales. “Oh. Okay.” 

“Yeah,” Nanu grimaces. “So I have to go. I’ll be back tonight, probably. Dinner’s in the fridge and all that. Feed the cats!” he adds over his shoulder as he runs out the door. 

_ Fuck _ . 

It barely takes fifteen minutes to get to Malie by charizard, but even that is too long considering the circumstances. Nanu has to remind himself to keep breathing, heart pounding as he slips off the charizard at the Malie City gates and runs to the pokemon center, tripping over himself in his hurry. People stare at him, the weird reclusive kahuna running through the street like he’s got death on his heels, but he doesn’t much care. 

“Malie City Pokemon Center, how can I- oh, Kahuna Nanu!” Nurse Joy’s cheerful expression morphs into something much grimmer. 

“Where is he?” he demands. He doesn’t need to specify any further — the center doesn’t get many human patients as it is, and certainly not many patients who the Kahuna himself would come to visit. 

Nurse Joy looks down at the desk. 

“ _ Where is he _ ?” 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Nanu-”   
She keeps talking, but Nanu doesn’t hear the rest. He doesn’t need to. 

Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ Why was he too late, why is he  _ always too late _ , what’s the fucking point of being the kahuna if he can’t even save a single person,  _ god damn it _ -

“Mr. Nanu? Are you alright?” 

He hadn’t realized he was on the floor, but here he is, a pathetic mess, on his hands and knees sobbing in the middle of a pokemon center while Nurse Joy hovers over him and the few trainers hanging around the center this late stare at him with unfiltered disgust. 

The people of Ula’ula never wanted this fuckup for a kahuna, and none of them have ever tried to hide it. Nanu doesn’t usually care, but right now it just seems gratuitous. He’s in mourning, damn it, he’s falling apart in front of them, and couldn’t they at least  _ try  _ to have a little empathy? 

“What the fuck are you looking at?” he snarls at an ace trainer who’s looking at him like he’s something she scraped off the bottom of her shoe. He feels a twinge of bitter satisfaction at the way she steps back and looks away from him.  _ Good.  _

“Mr. Nanu, please,” Nurse Joy says anxiously. Her voice sounds a hundred miles away. 

Nanu knows he should pick himself up and shoulder this burden with grace. That’s the job of a kahuna, after all. 

But all he can do is cry. 

Once he’s managed to collect himself a little bit more, his first question is, “What’s gonna happen to his daughter?” 

Nurse Joy seems relieved to answer a question with a definitive answer after nearly an hour of watching him break down in the middle of her pokemon center. “Well, she has no extended family, so the Aether Foundation is going to take her into their care-” 

“Oh, no,” Nanu snaps. Immediately, the hollow emptiness that has filled him since he arrived is replaced with cold, hard anger. He’s  _ not  _ letting those conservationist creeps anywhere near Acerola. “No, they’re not.” 

“Well,” Nurse Joy presses her lips into a thin line, “it’s not my decision, is it? They’re in the back if you’d like to take it up with them.” 

Without a second thought, Nanu storms into the back of the pokemon center. He doesn’t know where he’s gonna find Acerola, but a couple of Aether Foundation employees are talking near the vending machine, so he supposes he’ll start there. 

“Oh, hello, Kahuna,” one of them waves at him when he approaches, far too pleasant for the situation. 

“You’re not taking Acerola.” Might as well get straight to the point. He’s never been one for pointless conversation.

The foundation employee stares at him for a second, then says slowly, “You don’t mean  _ you  _ want her?” 

“Yeah,” Nanu answers firmly — it’s not like he’s prepared to raise a kid, but he’s  _ certainly  _ not leaving her in the foundation’s care, “I do.” 

“Kahuna, with all due respect, you’re a little…” 

“A little what?” 

“Completely incompetent,” the other employee snaps. 

It takes all of Nanu’s willpower not to punch him in the face right then and there. 

“What my friend is trying to say,” the first one butts in, obviously sensing the tension, “is that you’re not exactly the most reliable person, and, well, you’re not really in the position to be taking care of a child…” 

“And you are? You don’t even  _ know her _ . I’m practically family, and I’m taking her!” 

“But-” 

“You’re crazy!” the second employee interrupts his coworker. “You’re barely fit to be a kahuna, let alone a parent! Who’s to say you won’t run away to Kanto, or do something stupid and nearly die again, or-” 

“Enough,” Nanu snarls, grabbing him by the front of his shirt and pushing him up against the vending machine. “I’m the island kahuna. I get to choose where she goes. I know you think I’m crazy, I know the entire island hates me, but I  _ know  _ Acerola, and I’m not letting you fucking touch her.” 

“You have no right to-”

“I’m a cop,” he snaps, “I know the law.” 

 

He returns to Route 17 carrying a sleeping Acerola in his arms, exhausted and angry and miserable. 

“Oh!” Guzma, playing video games on his couch, perks up when Nanu opens the door. “You’re back!” 

Nanu raises a finger to his lips. 

Lowering his voice, Guzma asks, “What’s with the kid?” 

Nanu sighs heavily as he carries Acerola to the free couch and lays her down gently. “It’s been a long night, Guzma. Can we talk about this tomorrow?” 

“Oh, uh, yeah. Okay.” 

Guzma finishes his game, and Nanu turns off the lights and lies down on his couch. 

It’s only once Nanu is confident that he’s the only one awake that he slips out of the station and sits on the ground outside and lets himself cry without restraint.

 

Regardless of what he told the Aether Foundation employees, Nanu is really in no position to be a parent. 

Letting Guzma stay here, watching over him, and sticking up for him when need be was one thing, but Acerola is different. She’s five, she requires constant supervision and attention, and Nanu, so caught up in his own issues, quickly finds that he simply can’t do that. 

“Uncle Nanu, Uncle Nanu!” she tugs at his sleeve. “Tell me a story!” 

Oh, Acerola and her stories. Her father was a wonderful storyteller, so it’s not surprising that she loves hearing them almost as much as she does telling them herself. Nanu, on the other hand... 

“I don’t have any stories I haven’t already told you,” he says, trying to put on a smile. 

“That’s okay! Tell me about how you became kahuna, you never talk about that!” 

He never talks about it, but he thinks about it far too often. Thinks about his hike through the desert, about how desperate he’d been as he knelt in front of that stupid stone statue, begging Tapu Bulu to put him out of his misery. 

Bulu, that bastard, had other ideas. 

“Uncle Nanu?” Acerola frowns and wraps herself around his leg. She has no right to be this cute. 

“Yeah,” he drags himself out of the memory. “Sorry. So, uh, it all started when I went into the desert…” 

Acerola listens attentively as he spins a tale that’s 90% lies, and when he’s done, she smiles widely and says, “That’s so cool!  _ I  _ wanna be the kahuna someday!” 

“You’d make a great one,” he ruffles her hair. “I’d let you take my job any time.” 

From across the room, Guzma catches his eye, and he must see the sadness in Nanu’s expression, no matter how desperately he’s trying to hide it. 

“Acerola, you wanna go play outside?” he suggests. 

_ Thanks _ , he mouths to Guzma as he scoops Acerola up and carries her out the door. 

He smiles cheekily,  _ You’re welcome.  _

 

Nanu doesn’t know what leads him into Haina Desert this time. 

Last time it was anger and self-hatred, a rage that couldn’t be contained within the police station. But this time, he just feels… hollow. 

He’s the most universally hated kahuna Ula’ula has ever had, and he’s trying to shoulder that burden with pride, but he can’t stand it, goddammit, he really can’t. Why did Bulu choose  _ him _ ? He can barely take care of two kids, much less the entire island. 

Guzma and Acerola deserve better than him. Taking care of them is the only good thing he’s ever done, and even then, that’s not really true, is it? Taking in Guzma was an act of charity, sure, but Acerola was all selfishness, an unwillingness to part with the only person left on the island who doesn’t hate him just as much as he hates himself. 

He just needs to visit the tapu, something he hasn’t done since he was chosen six years ago. 

All he can hope is that maybe, this time, Bulu will listen to him. 

When he kneels at the stone statue and asks  _ Why, why did you choose me?  _ there’s no answer. 

“You made a mistake!” he yells at the statue angrily. He considers kicking it, maybe  _ that  _ will get some sort of response. “I’m not fit to be the kahuna! Choose someone else! You have to,” he insists, tears streaming down his face. “Please, the island needs someone better than me. They fucking hate me, and they’re right to, I can’t do a single damn thing for this island. You have to replace me.” 

If Tapu Bulu is listening, there’s no sign of it. 

The last remotely coherent thought Nanu has that night is,  _ If you won’t replace me, then I’ll make you.  _

 

He doesn’t really remember what stupid thing he did this time, but when he wakes up in a hospital bed with Hala sitting nearby, it doesn’t take a whole lot of brain power to figure it out. 

“Fuck, Hala, I’m sorry,” he starts. Hala was here when he got branded as the kahuna, too. It’s always him — the Akkala and Poni kahunas don’t want anything to do with Nanu (not that he can blame them, honestly). 

“You’ve been awake for two seconds and you’re already apologizing,” Hala sighs. 

He sounds disappointed, and that’s so much worse than any anger he could throw at him. 

“Let another kahuna come and yell at me next time,” he grumbles. “It would be better.” 

“Believe me, they wanted to.” Hala gives him a small smile, always the optimist. “But I’m not giving up on you just yet. Neither is Bulu.” 

“Arceus, I just…why’d it have to be me?” Nanu complains. He feels childish as soon as he says it, but he can’t help himself. “Why’d Bulu choose the one person on the island who doesn’t wanna be a kahuna?” 

“He saw something in you that you can’t see in yourself,” Hala says solemnly. “Death is the coward’s way out, Nanu. You’ve been chosen, whether you like it or not. Shoulder the burden with honor.” 

“What if I don’t?” Nanu argues pettily. There’s no fight left in him, but he’s determined to push Hala around a little, just because he can. 

Because he wants to see him snap, really. The other kahunas have. Everyone on Ula’ula has. The only people who haven’t are Hala and Bulu, and he already  _ tried  _ talking to the tapu. 

Hala crosses the room and sits down on the side of the bed, resting a calloused hand on Nanu’s shoulder. “I can’t stop you from running away again. But you’re not going to, are you?” 

“I  _ could _ .” 

“You have people here who need you. Don’t abandon them.” 

 

Despite all that, the first thing Hala does once Nanu gets discharged is to send him on vacation. 

“You’re obviously stressed,” the Melemele kahuna tells him far too cheerfully. “You could use a couple weeks off.” 

He tries to protest, but Hala has thought of everything from “you’ve spent 6 years avoiding being the Kahuna, you can wait a little longer” to “us kahunas have all but legally barred you from taking care of children, so they’re not gonna need you anyways.” 

It’s harsh, to say the least, especially since that last point is delivered not by Hala but by the Akkla kahuna, who hates Nanu with vicious tenacity. 

Hala gives the other kahuna a harsh look and assures Nanu that Acerola and Guzma will be well taken care of while he’s gone, and then he shoves a boat ticket into his hand and all but forces him out of the region. 

At least Hala has chosen to send him to Hoenn, probably the best region he  _ could  _ end up in if he’s to be forced out of Alola (although after the years he spent out of the region, he’s learned that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than home). Unova and Kalos are too crowded, Sinnoh and Galar too cold, Kanto too full of memories, Johto too close to Kanto. Hoenn is the only one left. 

Hoenn is nice. It’s warm, and it’s by the ocean, and short Interpol trips aside, Nanu has never been there before. There’s no shortage of things to do — he hikes up Mt. Pyre (not as impressive as Mt. Hokulani, but he doesn’t tell the locals that), visits a floating town that reminds him of Seafolk Village, and climbs to the top of the Sky Pillar, where a legendary pokemon is supposed to live (it’s nothing like the tapus, but it’s as close to a god as Nanu is gonna get without braving Sinnoh). 

There’s no altar at the top of the pillar, nothing for him to pray to. No sign of a pokemon, either, but that’s not unusual — he’s spent enough time praying to Tapu Bulu to know that any pokemon with even a hint of a godly spirit won’t give him the time of day. 

“Rayquaza?” he calls up at the sky, feeling quite stupid. “I don’t think you’re the sort of pokemon people pray to, but if you’re listening, give me a bit of guidance. Please.” 

“What are you doing up here?” 

Did he actually manage to summon someone? What the hell? 

He spins around to see that he has not, in fact, summoned some sort of divine spirit, and is instead met with a teenage girl who clearly climbed up here the normal way, though she doesn’t look nearly as exhausted from the climb as Nanu is. She’s  _ way  _ more intimidating than she has any right to be, standing there with her arms crossed and a tiny whismur bouncing around at her heels. She can’t be more than fifteen, but she glares at Nanu with the ferocity of an angered god. 

“What,” she repeats sternly, “are you doing here?”  

“Um… I heard there was a legendary up here, so…” 

“That- wh- this is a holy place,” the girl stammers. “Who let you come here?” 

“Uh…” Nanu thinks back to this morning. The man who hiked here with him had been quite helpful as soon as he learned he was a kahuna, but Nanu never actually got his name… “this, like, gym leader, I think? I don’t-” 

“Wallace,” she cuts him off with a scowl. “I can see why he’d let you, you have a very, er, awe-inspiring presence, but even so, it’s hardly his decision to make, not without telling me or Granny beforehand, and…” her voice gets quieter the longer she talks, trailing off into a mumble that Nanu can’t hear. He’s more than ready to leave. He just came here to pray, but it’s so early and he’s being interrogated by a teenager and this was supposed to be a kid-free vacation…

“Wait,” he realizes a bit too late, “did you call me  _ awe-inspiring _ ?” 

“Yeah,” the girl nods unabashedly. “You seem important. And strong.” 

Damn Bulu. 

“Um, thanks, miss, but I can leave if you don’t want me to be up here,” he tries, desperate to get this interaction over with. “I’m really not anyone important, and I don’t want you letting me stay because you think I have authority or anything like that, so-” 

“It’s fine,” she cuts him off. “Stay as long as you want. But I’d like to escort you down if you don’t mind. The tower can be dangerous if you don’t know where to go. It’s a miracle you got up here on your own, honestly.” 

Nanu laughs ever so slightly at that -- of course one of the few sacred spots in Hoenn would be a death trap. “Don’t worry about me, I’m not allowed to die that easily.” 

“Even so,” she presses her mouth into a thin line, “I’d prefer if you’d let me guide you.” 

“Fine,” Nanu concedes. 

“Good. I’ll wait downstairs.” she quickly disappears down the ladder, leaving Nanu alone on top of the pillar, finally. 

Immediately, the place feels mystic and isolated again. Goosebumps prickle on Nanu’s arms despite the warm weather, and he closes his eyes for a second to appreciate the quiet of it. The only sounds up here are the faint breeze and his heartbeat. It’s the same sort of feeling that accompanies him on every journey he’s ever taken to the ruins. The feeling that he’s so infinitesimally small, that his every movement is dictated by the whims of a being greater than him. 

Back in Interpol, Looker told him he was too religious. Most of their coworkers were from regions with less involved gods than the tapus, if any at all, and they had the same mild faith, a sort of passing knowledge that there were legendary pokemon watching over them but no real inclination to do anything about it. They thought Nanu strange for praying, especially when he was hardly ever in Alola, especially when he found himself praying to gods he didn’t know, gods who didn’t listen to him, gods who didn’t care about the people of their own region, much less a foreigner. 

But it’s not that he’s overly religious, really. That title goes to his parents and the Poni Island Kahuna and Hala. He’s just practical. 

He’s just asking for recognition from the gods he knows are there. 

“Rayquaza,” he tries again, wondering if he should preface it with some sort of title (great? exalted? holy?), “Um, I’m not from here, and I don’t really know how to talk to you, but if you’re listening, I need some guidance. I was chosen by my island guardians to protect my island, but I just… I don’t know if I’m cut out for the job. It’s not like I have a say in the matter but, just, I’m scared. My island is really important to me, and I don’t wanna let them down. Just… if you’re listening up there, give me a sign or something.” 

He waits for a few seconds, unsurprised when nothing happens, but still a bit disappointed. It’s not like Bulu ever answers him, why would Rayquaza? 

He’s about to head back down and tell that girl he’s ready to go when something rockets past him, dropping from the sky and landing at his feet so heavily it makes a small crater in the floor. 

A sign? That’s very… physical. 

Hesitantly, he reaches down and picks it up. It’s a shiny, circular stone, around the same size as a z-crystal. He taps it against his z-ring experimentally, but get nothing. Maybe it’s just a pretty rock. 

But no, it seems… special. 

It seems like something he should take care of. 

“Thank you,” he mumbles up at the cloudless sky, because he feels like he should say  _ something _ , even if he doesn’t know what exactly it is he’s thanking Rayquaza for. 

The girl is sitting on the floor on the next level down of the Sky Pillar, eating a candy bar and scratching her whismur between the ears. 

“That wasn’t very long,” she comments. She shoves the rest of the bar into her mouth and hops to her feet. 

Nanu shrugs. “I’m not really one for formalities. Do you know what this is?” he holds out the stone, which she runs over to get a better look at, her face lighting up with recognition the second she sees it. 

“Oh! That’s a mega stone! What’re you doing with one of those?” 

“A what?” 

“A mega stone,” she repeats slowly, like he’s stupid for not knowing what’s apparently very common knowledge. Must be a Hoenn thing. “I’m not sure which pokemon it’s for, though. C’mon, let’s go down. I can ask Wallace, I bet he’ll know.” 

She runs towards the ladder, and Nanu sighs heavily and follows her. 

No matter where he is, it seems that he’ll always end up a babysitter. 

 

“Interesting,” Wallace plucks the stone from Nanu’s hand. “Where did you get this?” 

“Um, it fell from the sky?” Nanu feels extraordinarily stupid saying it so plainly, but Wallace nods as though this is perfectly ordinary. Hey, maybe it is. He doesn’t know what things are like in Hoenn. 

“And you don’t have a keystone?” Wallace asks. 

Before Nanu can answer, the girl interrupts, “He doesn’t even know what mega evolution  _ is _ . I had to explain it to him!” 

“Don’t interrupt, Zinnia,” Wallace waves her off mildly. “Well, Nanu, this won’t be any use to you without a keystone, and I can’t help you get one.” 

“That’s fine,” Nanu answers. “I just wanna know what it’s for.” 

“Well, it looks like a sablenite. You could use it to mega-evolve a sableye, as the name implies… Nanu? You okay there?” 

“Yeah,” Nanu nods, though his heart is beating a bit too fast. “Just, I have a sableye. Weird coincidence.” 

“Not a coincidence,” Zinnia smiles devilishly, and Nanu knows she’s right. 

He’s much too far from Alola for the tapus to know or care what he’s up to, but it seems that the gods are looking out for him anyways. 

 

Nanu returns to Alola with a sunburn and a newfound determination to be the best kahuna he can possibly be. 

It doesn’t last very long. 

Hala is waiting for him on Hau’oli beach without his usual smile, looking grim and serious as he did the day he Nanu was chosen as Kahuna. 

“What’s wrong, old man?” Nanu asks as he jumps off the ferry and thanks the captain, already fearing the worst. 

Hala sighs heavily, taking Nanu’s bags from him before he can protest. “Guzma-” 

Immediately, Nanu can feel the little happiness he’d managed to get hold of during his vacation drain from his body. “What happened?” he nearly shouts. 

“Nanu, calm down,” Hala puts a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to stand still. 

“ _ What happened _ ?” 

“He ran away,” Hala says, so calm and factual like this isn’t terrible, this isn’t a _big fucking deal_ , “I don’t know why.”   
“You don’t-” _Calm down, Nanu. Take a deep breath._ Hala waits while he squeezes his eyes shut, breathing in and out as if it’ll make anything better. “There has to be a reason.” 

“You must be tired, my friend,” Hala says solemnly. “Come back to Iki Town. We can talk there.” 

It’s sort of hard to say no to Hala, so Nanu begrudgingly agrees, though all he wants to do is lock himself back up in the police station and scream. 

Hala spends the rest of the afternoon insisting that there’s nothing that could have caused Guzma to run away and nothing Nanu could have done to stop it, that he shouldn’t feel any guilt over this, that sometimes teenagers do crazy things and you just have to accept it. And then he invites Nanu to stay for dinner, and it takes all of his willpower to decline politely when he wants to storm out right then and there and slam the door in Hala’s obnoxiously kind face. 

He’s not mad at Hala, really, even though that’s where his anger is directed right now. Hala’s just stupid and easygoing and nothing in his life ever goes wrong. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t know how to recognize signs when he sees them, and Nanu is sure that, to him, Guzma really  _ did  _ run away for no reason. 

But no one does anything for no reason, and Nanu can’t help but think that if only he had been there, he could have picked up on whatever was wrong and stopped it before it came to this. 

When he arrives at the police station the sun is setting and it’s starting to rain, and he leaves the door unlocked before he goes to sleep. Just in case. 

 

With the other Kahunas watching over him and the sablenite now taking up a permanent spot on his desk, Nanu has no choice but to continue on with his life. (If he doesn’t, he risks death at the hands of the Akkala and Poni kahunas, he’s sure -- his colleagues are at their wit’s end with him and spare no time in showing it.) He runs a few trials, patrols Route 17, and manages to pawn a couple of the station meowths off on new trialgoers, though that barely puts a dent in the infestation. 

It’s stupid to be this hung up over Guzma, anyways. Nanu knew him for a few weeks. It’s not a big deal that he’s gone. It’s not like Nanu is responsible for his wellbeing. 

But still, he worries. 

He goes into the desert again, spitting sand out of his mouth and squinting to keep it out of his eyes, a journey that’s easy at this point; his feet carry him to the Ruins of Abundance on muscle memory alone. 

“I still think you made a mistake in choosing me,” he says as he kneels in front of the stone statue, “but I’ll try my best anyways.”   
As he leaves the Ruins, he swears he can feel the Tapu’s eyes on him. 

 

When Team Skull takes over Po Town, the officers who have been coming in shifts to help Nanu watch over Route 17 stop visiting, and he finds that he’s the only person on that stretch of the island besides the Team Skull thugs and occasionally Acerola. 

Acerola asks him to move, and he admits that the idea is appealing. Sleeping on the couch every night is beginning to take a toll on his back, and he’d love to live in Malie like he did when he was younger. The idea of a real bed and a pokemon center that’s not a mile walk away and not having to cross half the island to see Acerola certainly seems tempting. 

But he’s dealt with much worse than a group of street thugs. When he was sent to deal with Team Rocket in Kanto, he didn’t waver. He didn’t run. He went straight into the belly of the beast and he never once thought twice. 

And sure, he was younger then. Younger and fiercer with a back that didn’t ache constantly and the ability to read without putting on his glasses. But still. A lot might have changed, but no matter how old he gets, Nanu is  _ not  _ a coward. Especially not when it comes to Team Skull. 

So he stays in his police station, and he says hello to Guzma and all his grunts every time he sees them, and he makes sure they don’t extend their reach too far out of Po Town. And over time, the cop and the criminals come to have a relationship that Nanu would describe as almost peaceful on a good day, though perhaps that’s too optimistic. 

“You know,” he tells Guzma one day, standing in the rain outside the Po Town gates after yelling himself hoarse at a couple of Skull grunts who were terrorizing a prospective island challenger, “if you wanna hang out in the station again, the door’s always unlocked.” 

“I have my own home,” Guzma scoffs, fiddling with his gaudy gold necklace (at times, Nanu understands his anger driven crime, can relate to the feelings being the actions if not the actions themselves, but he’ll never understand the clothes).

But sometimes, Nanu finds himself with Skull grunts on his couch, and though that wasn’t really part of the deal, he doesn’t drive them away. 

They’re all just kids. Angry, lonely kids. And Nanu thinks about Team Rocket, thinks about Giovanni and his schemes, and in comparison to him, Guzma’s whole gang leader thing seems like a performance more than anything else. Nanu’s not gonna let them commit any crimes, obviously, and he’s yelled at Skull Grunts more than once for shoplifting and spray painting, but 90% of their criminal activity is just petty crime, and Nanu supposes he doesn’t mind letting that slide every once in a while. 

He’s sure they’ll get back on their feet eventually if he just gives them time. And he sleeps easy knowing that if they ever  _ did  _ become a serious threat to the people of Alola, he wouldn’t hesitate to crush their leader and all his bugs underfoot.

He’s not a nice person, after all, no matter what Acerola tells him. 

 

“You should really move out of the police station,” Acerola says. She’s stretched out on the couch she used to sleep on, reading a thick book. She brought a whole stack with her — at twelve, she has yet to give up on her goal to read every book in Malie Library, and who knows, she might just get there one day. 

“What’s wrong with it?” Nanu asks, though he can think of several things. Like how he’s making dinner with the only working burner on the stove, or how he’s put a bucket near his desk to catch the rain leaking in through the roof, or how he hasn’t slept in a real bed in over a decade, or how with Team Skull in Po Town the only people who ever come through here are Acerola and the occasional island challenger, or how everything in the station is coated in a layer of meowth fur, or how- 

Acerola rolls her eyes up at the leaky ceiling. “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?” 

“It has charm,” he insists defensively. 

“It most certainly does not. Hey, who’s that? Another challenger?” 

“Huh?” 

Acerola points through the window at a small figure approaching from down the road, hunched over against the rain. “You’ve gotta actually fight him this time. Promise me?” 

“Right _now_?” Nanu groans. “I’ve nearly finished dinner-”   
“Promise.”   
“Fine,” Nanu grumbles, “ _After_ dinner,” he adds. Acerola rolls her eyes again, but she doesn’t say anything. 

Ugh. Teenagers. She’s certainly grown to be a tenacious one. Nanu sees more of her father in her every day. Her love of reading, her adventurous spirit, her natural leadership skills…

It hurts just being around her, sometimes. Every time she bosses him around or tells him about her part-time job as a trial captain or tells the kids at the Aether House one of her stories, all Nanu sees is her father. 

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” he tells Acerola. “Watch the rice.” 

She nods and skips over to the stove, and he pulls on his raincoat and steps outside. 

“Hey!” he yells at the boy. “Kid!” He’s close enough now that Nanu can see him more clearly — blond hair dripping in his eyes, an assortment of silver jewelry glinting in his ears, soaked clothes that look like he put them through a paper shredder, bright green eyes that stare daggers at Nanu as he trudges towards the station. 

“What do you want?” the boy asks. 

“Are you an island challenger?” 

“ _ No _ ,” he scoffs a little too defensively. 

That’s a relief, at least. Nanu didn’t feel like fighting tonight. “Okay, well, Team Skull’s pretty much taken over Po Town. You should go home.”   
“I know about Team Skull,” the boy snaps. “That’s why I’m going there.”   
He looks… lost. 

He has yet to start his own gang inside Nanu’s police station or fall asleep on the side of the road, but he’s all too familiar regardless. 

“Um, well, I was making dinner, if you wanna come inside?” he suggests. 

The boy considers this. He looks at Nanu, then at the endlessly tall Po Town walls, then down at his own feet, and he grumbles, “Fine.” 

Acerola is delighted to have company, predictably. She’s also overcooked the rice, but Nanu doesn’t blame her — the stove in the station is finicky. It took him years to get used to it, and he’s fine with eating dry rice with his chicken as long as he has some decent company to eat it with. 

Nanu sets the table while Acerola tries to convince the boy to borrow a change of clothes while she puts his in the dryer. Despite the fact that he’s soaking wet, shivering and dripping all over the doormat, he puts up a valiant fight, insisting that he “doesn’t need her pity” and he’s “perfectly fine, thank you”. 

“You’ve already made a puddle in my doorway,” Nanu snaps at him — he flinches back a little at the sudden noise, all too familiar, “let her dry your damn clothes.” 

He grumbles something under his breath that Nanu can’t hear -- damn him and his sub-par hearing -- a string of words that ends with a “Fine.”

“Good,” Nanu nods, satisfied. By the time Acerola has started the dryer and the boy has changed in the bathroom (he’s around Acerola’s size, thankfully) the food is starting to get cold, but the kids eat it without complaint. 

The boy’s name is Gladion, he says. He eats Nanu’s food and sleeps on his couch and refuses to tell him where he came from or why he isn’t there, and Nanu finds himself slipping into the past, like the last seven years haven’t happened, like there’s no gang right next door, like there’s still someone to be saved and something to be done about it. 

When he wakes up the next morning, Gladion is gone. Nanu feels his stomach twist ( _ I let another one get away _ ) but Acerola, reading at his desk, waves her pokedex at him. 

“I got his number,” she says without looking up from her book. “Just in case.” 

Summer turns to fall, and Ula’ula gets as cold as it ever does, which isn’t very cold at all, granted, but Nanu still finds himself putting on sweaters when he goes out at night and not noticing the absence of the broken AC. He keeps an eye on Gladion, keeps an eye on Guzma. Yells at some Team Skull grunts, spends most of his money on cat food, patches up the roof, watches it start leaking again. 

Akkala welcomes a new kahuna, and Poni loses theirs. Acerola becomes a trial captain, and she takes great pride in it, bringing Nanu to her trial sight and giving him a tour, not that there’s much to see. 

“Isn’t it perfect?” she grins widely, jumping up and down with stars in her eyes.

Nanu looks around the abandoned megamart. There’s a spiderweb stretched across the doorway and a haunter in the corner is busy knocking cans off the shelves with a solemn dedication. 

“Yeah, princess,” Nanu says, “it’s awesome.” 

Nanu still hates being Kahuna. He still worries about Team Skull, worries for the safety of its members just as much as he does the gang’s threat to civilians. But the people of Alola don’t hate him like they used to, and when he gets lonely he has Acerola for company. 

It’s far from perfect, but still, life is good on Ula’ula Island. 

 

The price of having an open-door policy when it comes to letting homeless kids crash in the police station is that the door is, quite literally, always open, and certain overenthusiastic professors are all too aware of that. 

Nanu was busy wallowing in his misery in Kanto when Kukui did his island challenge, so he never got to see the professor grow up like Hala did, but they met briefly in his teenage years, and those meetings were enough for Nanu to determine that he can’t stand the kid. 

“Alola, Nanu!” Kukui yells, walking into the station without even knocking. He’s loud, always so  _ loud _ , and at nine in the morning, no less. 

“Acerola, kick him out for me, will you?” Nanu groans, throwing an arm over his eyes. He’s unfortunately awake, but not willing to act on it just yet. 

But he gets no answer. Right. Acerola went back to the Aether House yesterday. Great timing on her part, really. 

He’s not mad at her. She has school and trial captain responsibilities, after all. It would be nice to have someone to act as a buffer between him and the loudest man in Alola, that’s all. 

“Nanu?” Kukui calls again. “You in here?” 

“Yeah,” he groans, forcing himself off the couch and trudging towards the main room. “I’m awake, I’m awake.” 

“Great! I just came over to do some field work and Hala asked me to drop this off with you! Oh, and I brought my lab assistant, let me introduce you-” 

“I told you already, you don’t have to introduce me, dipshit,” a new voice interrupts him. “He already knows me.” 

Of course he does. Nanu would know that voice in his sleep. 

He walks into the main room to find Guzma standing at Kukui’s side with a scowl on his face, looking around at the station like he’s dropped into another dimension. He looks better than he did when he was running Team Skull. Healthier. 

Nanu raises his eyebrows at the young delinquent. “Lab assistant, huh?” 

Guzma averts his eyes. “He’s the only person who would hire me.” 

“Well, I’m glad you’ve got some honest work,” Nanu tells him, and he means it. He’s proud that Guzma has managed to get back on his feet, and though he knows he didn’t have that much to do with it, he feels like he helped, at least a little bit. He watched over Team Skull for nearly ten years, after all, watched Guzma grow from a miserable teenager into a slightly less miserable adult. Yeah, Nanu would have preferred that he discovered himself through something a bit more legitimate than running his own gang, but he turned out okay, didn’t he? 

“Thanks,” Guzma mumbles. 

“Here you go, Nanu!” Kukui yells brightly, thrusting a letter into Nanu’s hands, completely oblivious to the mood in the station. Nanu is, once again,  _ so  _ glad that he never had to do a grand trial for Kukui. He can’t guarantee he wouldn’t have killed him. 

Nanu reads the back of the letter, his name and address scrawled across it in Hala’s handwriting (He must be the only person in Alola who still communicates through letters. It’s oddly charming.), before tossing it on his desk. 

“I’ll read it later,” he tells Kukui. 

“Okay,” Kukui nods. “Well, we’d better head out! C’mon, Guzma!” 

“You go ahead,” Guzma waves him off. “I’ll be out in a second.” 

Nanu watches curiously as Kukui leaves the station. Guzma stands in front of him, eyes trained on the floor, shifting from foot to foot. He looks awkward and uncomfortable in a way he hasn’t since the first time they met. 

“I’m sorry,” he mutters at the ground, the last thing Nanu expects from him. “For everything.” 

Nanu is silent for a second. He’s never, not once in nine years, heard Guzma  _ apologize _ . 

Cautiously, he pulls Guzma into a hug. The ex-thug is stiff at first, but relaxes after a couple of seconds, though he doesn’t hug Nanu back. 

“I’m sorry too,” Nanu tells him. 

“For what?” 

“I wasn’t there for you when you should have been, and-” 

Guzma pulls away from the hug and stares at him indignantly. “Are you  _ kidding me _ ? You’ve done more for me than you ever should have had to! Don’t you  _ dare  _ feel responsible for my stupid decisions!” 

“But I should have-” 

“You should have  _ nothing _ , old man.” Guzma is insistent, as loud and boisterous as he always is. Nanu can’t possibly argue with him. 

“I didn’t do enough,” he insists, though he knows there’s no winning this one. Guzma rarely loses at anything, especially not when there’s an opportunity for him to yell about how right he is. 

“But you did a lot.” 

Nanu’s pokedex buzzes harshly, the sound cutting through the room. He grabs it from his desk and opens a new message from Acerola, with Guzma leaning over to read it without an invitation. 

_ Guess who just cleared my trial! He’s coming for you next :3  _

Accompanying the message is a blurry selfie of her and Gladion. She’s got one arm around his shoulders, grinning brightly, and he’s holding a Ghostium-Z up to the camera. 

Nanu feels a twinge of pride at the sight of it. 

“Go do whatever you and Kukui came for,” he tells Guzma as a rare smile creeps up his face. “I’ve got a grand trial to set up.” 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this fic check out my other ones or follow me on tumblr @boyfriem (@unovva for pokemon related stuff)


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